


Gleipnir

by crossedsabers10S



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempt at Humor, F/F, F/M, Fem!Klaus, Fluff and Angst, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24747442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossedsabers10S/pseuds/crossedsabers10S
Summary: An ambitious witch picks a fight and it results in Klaus being trapped in the Salvatore Boarding House with her brother, two Salvatores, one Bennett Witch, and the Doppelgänger.
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Stefan Salvatore, Klaus Mikaelson/Damon Salvatore, implied Klaus/Caroline, implied Klaus/Katherine, past Katherine/Elijah
Comments: 17
Kudos: 49





	Gleipnir

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the Ritual, but before Esther revives, I guess. Maybe. Title comes from the Norse myth of the ribbon/chain used to bind the wolf, Fenrir. 
> 
> Still watching the show, so if I got any details wrong, feel free to correct me. 
> 
> I…. Okay, so this was meant to be just Klaus/Caroline, but then she started flirting with Damon just to mess with him and it kind of went from there, so….
> 
> I think I used the word smirk far too many times, but I’m too tired to fix it.

Klaus makes herself comfortable on the Salvatore's couch and watches in idle amusement as the Mystic Falls Gang™ bickers amongst themselves with ever increasing fervor. Elijah, sitting across from her, looked as though if he were human he’d be getting a migraine right about now.

The long suffering expression on his face brings joy to Klaus’ cold, shriveled heart.

“Isn’t there anything you can do, Bonnie?” Elena pleads. Klaus has a tally of how many times the doppelganger has stared doe-eyed at her compatriots and, so far, the score is up to eleven.

Damon sneers and eyes Bonnie like she’s some kind of viper. Bonnie eyes him right back like he’s a meal who may or may not be worth the effort of hunting down and swallowing whole. Damon just sneers harder at her implied threat. “Are we sure Witchy wasn’t the one who did this to us in the first place?”

“Shut up, Damon, you're not helping,” Stefan says.

“You shut up, Mr. Don’t Kill Random Witches, Damon. Maybe she’s _friendly_ , Damon. Give her a _chance_ , Damon. And what does the nice friendly witch _do_ with her chance? She _magically locks us in our own house_!”

Bonnie glares at them both before turning to Elena. “I’ve already tried, Elena. My magic’s not….working right now.” She flicks her fingers, a tick Klaus has noticed occurring with more and more frequency the longer the witch has been magicless.

“Not working? What does that mean?” Elena asks at the same time that Damon throws his hands in the air and says, “Oh, the one time we need your brain-popping powers and you can’t use them!”

“I’m sorry if the wards on the house suppress my magic, Damon! It’s not my fault!” Bonnie defends.

“Listen, Bon-Bon. I’ve been stuck in here with all of _you_ and the two murder twins over there,” Damon jerks his hand in Elijah and Klaus’ direction, “for actual hours. I’m honestly surprised that no one is dead yet.”

They’ve been arguing for the past hour. Back and forth over who’s fault it was that they were trapped in the Salvatore Boarding House. They’d spent the first hour trying to get out, but have since retired to the living room to throw around blame and plan their next move after their efforts had failed.

Klaus still maintains that trying to throw Damon through a window was a clever escape attempt and not her just getting tired of being called ‘Viking Barbie.’ (He’d only bounced off the glass, which had given a menacing shimmer before fading away.)

Personally, Klaus blamed the witch who thought she could trap two Originals like she would rats in a cage. When Klaus got out, and she _would_ get out, she was going to greatly enjoy teaching the witch the error of her ways.

Or, she could just leave it to Elijah. Her brother was no less annoyed by this as she was, although she would bet that he was less amused on the whole.

“Damon!” Elena shrieks in reply to something Klaus had been too busy ignoring to hear, and Klaus tunes back in to the free show. “How could you _say_ that?”

Damon hums thoughtfully. “Well,” he says, with great introspection. “I open my mouth and the words just…. Happen. Do you really need me to explain it to you?”

“Damon,” Stefan chides his brother.

“Stefan,” Damon mocks.

Klaus debates whether she should do something about the way Elijah’s face is twitching. On one hand, seeing her usually stoic older brother commit murder out of passion would be funny. On the other, if he kills them all then it will be just the two of them stuck together in this place with no distractions between them and Klaus would very much like to avoid that.

“ _Brother_ ,” she says, and Elijah snaps his head to her. Old Norse wasn’t something her family used often, it gave too much of their origins away, but the only people here already knew about where they came from. “ _Do you still have your_ ”--she has to think of the word and can’t quite translate it correctly--” _pocket sound device_?” She wrinkles her nose at the less than stellar phrasing but lets it rest.

Elijah studies her for a beat before pulling a sleek touchscreen phone out of his suit pocket. “ _Yes_ ,” he says, in the same language. “ _Why? There are no witches who would come near here, none who I would trust to free us_.”

“ _Kol_ ,” Klaus answers, Elijah immediately shakes his head.

“ _Kol? Kol would perhaps point and laugh at us before setting the house ablaze._ ”

Klaus rolls her eyes. Kol would at least wait for a reason before resorting to arson. Maybe not much of one, but…. “ _He knows magic. Maybe if we promise to help him with his little project….?_ ”

“ _I am not. Helping Kol found a cult. Another cult._ ”

“ _You founded a cult,_ ” Klaus reminds him.

Elijah glares. “ _And how well did that turn out? No. I will not be calling Kol._ ”

“ _Brother, have you forgotten what--_ ”

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to use a language not everyone in the room understands?” Damon’s snide voice interrupts them.

Klaus turns away from her stubborn older brother and smiles at the elder Salvatore, making sure to use all her teeth. “Oh, are you done with your useless arguing? And hasn’t anyone told you that interrupting a conversation is rude? _At least you are pretty enough to make up for your manners_ ,” she adds in Norse, just to watch the way his face twists in annoyed confusion.

“Niklaus, must you?” Elijah asks, leveling her an unimpressed look.

Klaus looks at him innocently, something which must greatly discomfort the rest of the room, given the sudden uptick in heartbeats.

“Must?” she asks. “No. But I find that exercising my temper in smaller ways than going immediately for breaking bones is better for my health. And when I say my health, I mean everyone else’s. You should try it, brother. Maybe shedding that gentlemanly facade of yours will be good for you.”

“Elijah is a gentleman,” Elena says. “He has honor.”

“Unlike you,” Bonnie adds, quieter, but in no way inaudible to the supernatural beings in the room. Judging from the defiant glare she gives Klaus, the witch was very aware of that.

Klaus blinks at her. “Unhonorable? Me? Whatever gave you that impression?”

Klaus always kept her word. She rather made a point of it.

Oh, maybe not always the spirit of it, but to the letter, yes. Everyone knew that if she made a deal with them then she would see it through. Just like they knew that if they made a deal with her that they would see it through. On the pain of death or worse.

And everyone in the supernatural community knew that if she made a threat then she would see it through.

If anything, Klaus' reputation was for honesty. She didn’t lie, not directly anyways. Oh, she’ll insinuate and omit and dodge the question, but she doesn’t lie. Why bother when you had enough power to use the truth alone?

If she hadn’t kept to her word, then she would have been hunted down by more than just Mikael over the centuries.

“Oh, how about the centuries of murder?” the witch says, as if she had personally known each and every one of Klaus’ victims.

Klaus exchanges a glance with Elijah, who only raises an eyebrow at her. Did they think that Elijah never killed people? Klaus has thought that the first time they met her brother they watched him kill some pathetic traitorous excuse for a vampire for daring to betray them.

Or were they only referring to humans when it came to murder? And in that case, Klaus can very much attest to Elijah having done that too.

“Or how about when you tried to ritually sacrifice Elena? Have you forgotten that?” Stefan adds.

Klaus tilts her head at her old friend. “It was nothing personal. And you were the ones who broke the deal there, not I. It worked out in my favor for the Doppelgänger to remain alive, so I let it slide”—

“Let it slide?” Damon says incredulously.

—“but let’s not pretend that I was the one who did anything but uphold our bargain. Actually, you all have a habit of that. Making bargains and then somehow weaseling your way out of them. The ritual, Stefan’s ten years, stabbing my little sister in the back. My brother, too, I suppose,” Klaus adds with a nod in his direction. “I would almost find your continued survival admirable.”

“Almost?” Stefan drawls, in the way that made Klaus think of dark, smoky clubs and blood in champagne.

“If I didn’t find it so annoying,” she replies, shaking off the nostalgia with practiced ease.

“Oh,” Damon says, blue eyes flashing, “but I live to annoy you.”

Klaus smirks at this and relishes in the way Damon turns wary at her amusement. “Quite possibly,” she agrees, nodding her head.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks, with narrowed eyes.

Elijah sighs. “What my sister means,” he explains, “is that it is very possible that the reason Katerina turned you and your brother was for the purpose of throwing Klaus off of her scent. A decoy, if you will, to leave witnesses who were very certain of her being either dead or trapped in that tomb.”

Hurt flashes across Damon’s face, making him look like the lovelorn young man he had been as a human, and Klaus has the insane urge to tell him that it was no fault of his own that Katerina manipulated him. She successfully resists it in the name of that it would completely ruin her image.

Stefan looks more stoic than his brother, but he too seems uncomfortable with his entire vampiric existence being the result of one person trying to flee Klaus.

“Katherine loved Stefan,” Elena protests. She takes her--Lover? Ex? Klaus didn’t know and really couldn’t say she cared, either--by the hand. Stefan squeezes back. “Damon too,” she adds, and doesn’t seem to notice the way Stefan stiffens. Trouble in paradise?

Klaus shakes her head. “Love? Katerina?” she scoffs.

Elijah’s face twists, barely there, but Klaus knows her brother. For centuries they have stood by each other’s side, and it has only been in recent years that they have been in opposition. So, Klaus knows what that expression means, that he is remembering moonlit garden walks and chases in the woods and the bloodstained rope Katerina hung herself with.

So Klaus sighs and decides to tell the truth for once. “That is fair enough, I know that she is capable of such,” she says. Stefan jolts in place. Surprise at Katerina being capable of sincere emotion, or surprise at Klaus admitting it? Damon’s face twists further before Klaus continues. “She could have turned anyone in town, let her own friends escape to spread the news, but she chose you two, gave both of her human lovers her blood before the fighting started. Of course, I may well be wrong. A few centuries of running will change a person,” she says, and doesn’t let the bitterness show _too_ much.

Gods know that her family has always been good at hunting things (people) down. For all that she’s not related to Mikael, she was raised by him.

Elijah eyes her, surprised by her candor. “You were friends,” he says, “once upon a time. You would know.”

Klaus laughs, mood lifting. “I only know, brother, because I have seen her with you.” She smirks at him, teasing. “And friends?” she says, smirk growing wider, “If that is what you want to call it to make yourself feel better.”

Elijah grimaces at the reminder.

Damon blinks. “Wait. What?”

Klaus gives him a smirk. “You think that you and your brother are the only pair of siblings Katerina… came between? I might not have made the mistake of loving her, as it seems almost everyone else in the world did, but she _was_ my lady-in-waiting for awhile.”

The younger vampire blinks again, looking disturbed and then contemplative as he eyes Klaus. “....that, should _not_ be as hot as it sounds.” Elijah glares at him.

“Should I be flattered?” Klaus muses aloud, and Damon freezes like a rabbit who has just seen a wolf. Klaus stares at him, amused by the way his eyes catch on hers before he regains his normal careless indifference.

Elena is looking at everyone with wide eyes and Klaus brings her mental count up to twelve.

The witch just looks disgusted with the entirety of the proceedings and Klaus imagines that if she had both her powers back and the ability then everyone here would have been spelled silent shortly into the conversation.

Stefan catches on, chokes. “Wait, you and _Katherine_?”

Klaus looks at him. “Are you really that surprised?”

Stefan eyes her. “No,” he admits. “You chased her for five hundred years. You _didn_ ’ _t_ love her?” he asks. Klaus arches a brow. “Just asking,” he says.

“Not as anything more than a once-friend and a way to freedom,” Klaus says. “Funnily enough, we made better friends than lovers. Also, sleeping with someone who liked to discuss Elijah during girl talk was….” She wrinkles her nose. “We didn’t last long.”

Damon and Stefan exchange a look. ‘Girl talk,’ Damon mouths. Stefan makes a confused face back at him and shrugs, shaking his head.

Elena looks at Elijah. Elijah stares back placidly, hands folded in his lap.

“Is that why you helped me?” she asks. “Because I reminded you of Katherine as a human?”

“No,” Elijah says. And then doesn’t elaborate.

Honorable big brother just doesn't want to admit that the reason he had helped out was because he had wanted to teach Klaus a lesson.

Damon switches his gaze between Elena and Elijah rapidly before sending an exasperated look at Klaus.

Klaus just raises an eyebrow at him.

“Right. Thanks for the history lesson. But I’m _way_ too sober for this.” He turns and walks out of the room, coming back seconds later with a bottle of liquor and a single glass. He drops down onto the couch beside Klaus. Stefan watches him with something that might have been concern, or might have just been pained exasperation.

“Getting _drunk_?” the witch asks incredulously. “That’s your solution to this? We’re still trapped in here, Damon!”

Damon smiles at her. Pours. And then downs it, before promptly refilling his glass.

“And not even sharing?” Klaus tsks. She sprawls further onto the couch and lets her head loll back. Elijah sighs at the way her muddy boots thunk onto the coffee table.

“I know you have manners, Niklaus,” he tells her. “I was there when you were taught them.”

She yawns pointedly, then says, “Manners, Elijah? I believe us to be a little past that but,” she leans forwards and, without taking her feet off the table, withdraws a hunting knife from her boot, “if you insist.” And then she relishes in the reactions from the rest of the room.

“Wha--” Stefan moves in front of Elena. Damon makes an aborted twitch in the same direction.

Bonnie gives the knife a look then makes a face at Elijah that makes it clear that she blames him for this.

Klaus blinks at Elijah’s unimpressed exasperated look. Then extends the knife handle first towards Damon. “What?” she asks.

Damon sets down his glass with a soft clink and stares down at the bone handled hunting knife. “Is that blood?” he asks, before, “No wait, I don’t even know why I asked, of course it’s blood.”

Klaus eyes the chipped and stained blade. “Don’t worry,” she says assuringly, “I’m pretty sure that this isn’t from anything sentient.”

“Pretty sure,” Damon repeats under his breath. He takes the knife from her and turns it over in his hands, curious. “Very shiny,” he compliments. “Why do I have this?”

Klaus eyes Elijah innocently. “Is it not custom to turn one’s weapons over to the host anymore?” she asks. “I’m only trying to be _polite_.” Damon looks at Elijah. Elijah has two fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It’s really not,” Stefan says.

Elena nods in agreement. “Really, really not.”

“Oops,” Klaus smirks. “I’ll take that back, thank you.” She gestures to Damon for her knife.

“Sure,” Damon shrugs and relinquishes it. She shoves it back into its holster. “It’s not like you need some puny pigsticker to eviscerate us all anyways.”

“ _Clever as you are pretty_.” Klaus tells him. In Norse. “ _Are you as clever with your tongue?_ ”

“ _Sister_!” Elijah barks, startling the people in the room who have yet to see his older brother act. Klaus ignores him.

Confusion crosses Damon’s face before he catches on. “Are you… flirting with me?” He looks torn between smugness and panic. “Is that what this is?”

“Oh my god,” Elena says, staring at them.

Ha! Klaus thinks, that’s thirteen.

“Why,” Stefan asks the ceiling like he’d rather be swearing at it, “why is this happening?”

“I’m calling Jeremy,” Bonnie tells the room at large. Then leaves.

Elena tears her eyes away from the scene and scrambles after her. “Wait,” she cries, “Bonnie!”

Klaus can hear them clearly, despite being in another room, arguing over whether the Gilbert boy needs to be involved in this. The Doppelganger is telling the witch to leave her brother out of it, while the witch is insisting that he can help.

What help one teenage human can do against a spell, Klaus doesn't know.

Stefan looks like he would like to go after them, but settles against a wall instead. To keep a better eye on the Originals, Klaus would assume.

“So,” Klaus gestures to the bottle of alcohol. “Are you going to share? I hear we’re going to be in here awhile.”

“Why not?” Damon blurs past the two girls in the kitchen and comes back with another glass. He sits back down beside Klaus--a bit further away this time, she notices, amused--and pours her some. Eyes her. Then pours another shot. Then hands her the glass.

“My thanks,” she says, then knocks it back.

“No problem,” Damon says. “What’s sharing a little booze between enemies?”

Tracing one finger over the rim of her glass, she asks, “You consider yourselves my enemies?”

Damon raises both eyebrows at her. “You don’t?” he asks.

“No,” she tells him bluntly.

Damon blinks at that.

Stefas copies his expression. “Wait, wait, what?” the Ripper of Monterrey asks the Original Hybrid.

Klaus smiles. “You are adversaries, certainly. Obstacles. Sometimes grudging allies. But enemies? I wouldn't go that far.”

“Is that meant to be reassuring?” Damon asks Stefan without looking away from her wolf’s grin.

Klaus’ grin widens and her teeth catch the light, bringing attention to her sharpened canines. “If you were enemies,” she tells them, “I would have killed you.”

“Isn’t that what you were already trying to do?” Stefan asks warily. His eyes dart towards Elijah, who has yet to move from his seat and is just eyeing the scene in front of him, imperturbable on the outside as ever.

“You don’t really think that I couldn’t have just killed you whenever I wanted, do you?” She scoffs at the looks on their faces. “Oh, come on. There’s arrogance, then there’s delusion.”

She’s a thousand years older than them and has spent much of that time fighting and killing.

And she would wager that she would have been able to kill them if they had all been human just as easy. Their village might have been mostly made up of farmers, but Klaus has participated in more than a few raids during her human life, and she’d had a taste for blood even then. Certainly she could have taken two lovestruck aristocrats.

“You can’t compel us,” Damon reminds her. “That’s the whole point of drinking vervain with my morning coffee.”

She doesn’t even try to stop from laughing. “Salvatore,” she tells him earnestly, “I don’t need to be able to compel you.”

“Damon,” Stefas warns, but Damon waves him off.

“Then why haven't you killed us?” Damon challenges.

“You’re protecting my Doppelganger,” she answers. “What use is there in killing you?”

“And that would piss off a certain Baby Vamp, right?” Damon responds, with narrowed eyes. “Although, I’m not sure why you bother. Been there, done that, not worth a t-shirt.”

“Damon!” Stefan scolds.

Klaus lets her smile turn into a snarl. “Don’t,” she tells him.

Damon smirks back at her, but puts his hands up in surrender.

“Anyways,” Klaus turns to her brother. “What I was trying to tell you earlier.”

“Yes?” Elijah asks.

“It’s the full moon tonight,” she says, and lets her eyes flash wolf-yellow. “And I’m starting to think that there’s more to this spell than just trapping us.”

The three vampires in the room stare at her in horror.


End file.
